


And I Will Walk the Earth A Stranger

by bulletproofteacup



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Emotional Turbulence, F/M, Heartbreak, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of Rape, Revenge, Trauma, Zutara, Zutara Smut Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletproofteacup/pseuds/bulletproofteacup
Summary: The war does not end with a great destiny-changing battle. Instead, it dies under a bright full moon, bathed in blood and terror.Aang dies underneath Ba Sing Se, Iroh dies trying to buy their escape, and Katara dies in prison. She doesn't stay dead.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 123
Collections: Zutara Smut Exchange





	And I Will Walk the Earth A Stranger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allthewaydown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewaydown/gifts).



> This work was inspired by the amazing art of grapefruitwostep. You can find their art here:  
> http://grapefruittwostep.tumblr.com/post/176596732969/day-six-bloodbending-i-mean-i-suppose-i-had-the
> 
> ⚬⚬☽⚬☾⚬⚬
> 
> This story has been dear to my heart for a long time.
> 
> In 2018, I had some bad shit happen to me and not surprisingly, it fucked me up. 
> 
> I stopped writing for a long time and when I could finally bring myself to put pen to paper again, what emerged from my mind was terrifying and terrible. I went from writing fluffy romance to incredibly dark material. 
> 
> Writing this story has been a way to to cope and work through difficult emotions. Affectionately titled, Water Witch, writing this story has been very painful, sensitive, and dear to me. It has been incredibly cathartic to step into Katara's character and explore the anger, grief, and fear that often linger after traumatic events. In many ways, her attempts to regain control over her life and seek revenge for the wrongs committed against her reflects the difficult journey that survivors of violence and trauma must walk as they pursue a better life (sans mass murder of course--i do not condone her actions, jeez louis). Zuko's grief, horror, and ultimate hope explore how loved ones cope with second-hand trauma. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.

⚬⚬☽⚬☾⚬⚬  
Prelude  
⚬⚬☽⚬☾⚬⚬

The end of the war begins on a warm spring night when the moon is heavy and pregnant in the sky. The air is cool, but warmer than it has been for many months. The breeze tastes of life and sunshine and summer.

It has been a year to the day since the Avatar was forever removed from the world. On this night, spirits creep from beyond the shadows and unleash a nightmare upon the Fire Nation. 

At first, only soldiers disappear. Their bodies are found later, twisted into terrifying abominations. Streets run red with the blood of the Fire Lord's finest and when the sun rises again, a garrison lays empty and bare. 

It doesn’t stop there. 

The next month, when the moon is full again, a town is destroyed. 

Men disappear, women vanish. The children are spared on this night (but they will not be in another village on another quiet moonlight night). 

Young men, barely out of boyhood, are spared sometimes, but most often mothers and old women do not feel the wrath of spirits. None seem to remember a small act of kindness performed days before the full moon, none seem to recall the somber colonial girl with sad blue eyes and the old, bitter crone she called grandmother. They were on their way to relatives in Caldera City, but like so many, they’d been lost in the carnage. 

The survivors all, however, remember the river goddess who spared them, the one with unnatural blue eyes and a sad smile. They do not speak of the crone, the terrible old woman who killed with delicious pleasure and little discrimination. 

It isn’t until the third full moon of terror--each tragedy creeping closer and closer toward Caldera City--that the Fire Lord dispatches his daughter. The bright and terrible Princess Azula, slayer of the Avatar and conqueror of Ba Sing Se, leaves the safety of her caldera home to face the strange goddesses of death. 

The Fire Nation rejoices and prays for her victory. 

On the fourth full moon night, Princess Azula falls at the harbor on Hing Wa Island. The town surrounding the harbor and all the little villages on nearby islands are destroyed in the process. The few survivors speak of the great wave that swept over the island; of the way the river goddess rode it like an avenging spirit. 

The Princess, they say, broke the wave with a great dragon’s breath of blue fire. She fought fiercely and killed the crone with Agni’s heavenly lightning. 

But just as the moon was at its highest peak, the river goddess-mortally wounded--drowned the Princess in a great maelstrom of ice and rushing waves. 

The people mourn their Princess but honor her sacrifice--the Fire Nation is safe again. 

But on the fifth full moon, the river goddess appears in a town only a stone’s throw from Caldera City. None are spared. 

The next night, when the moon is gone and the sky is dark, the river goddess walks through Caldera City and strolls right into the bed chamber of the Fire Lord. He is slaughtered in his sleep--his heart ripped out of his chest and his expression frozen in a final terror so great that his body is covered at his funeral. The generals in the palace are simply dead, as if they’d passed in their sleep. It isn’t until the bodies are examined that the survivors discover that their hearts had simply exploded in their chests. 

Three days later, Prince Zuko is crowned Fire Lord. 

His first act is to immediately end the war. 

The river goddess simply disappears, like steam drifting away from a perfect cup of jasmine tea. Her identity is never discovered, but the full moon killings stop and there is peace in the Fire Nation again. 

  
⚬⚬☽☾⚬⚬

Fire Lord Zuko is known for working late into the evening. While he is not the youngest ruler in the history of his nation, he is the youngest to rule without a regent by his side, without a mother or uncle or adviser guiding his direction.  
Zuko rules because he is the only one left to do so.  


The common folk, who have fed generations of sons and daughters to the war, crave peace. The nobility--or what remains of them--thirst for his blood, but after fighting a dozen Agni Kai duels in the first month of his rule alone, they respect his authority enough not to challenge it openly. 

So far. 

He’s only been at this job for a year, but Zuko knows progress is slow and painful.  


Peace is worth it.  


His Uncle died protecting the Avatar and the girl he loved died trying to heal them both—their sacrifice is what guides his now. The world is tired of death and so is Zuko.  


Peace is the only answer.  


On this early autumn night the air is cold, but the windows are open anyway. Zuko likes the crisp, snapping quality of the air--it reminds him of the long years he spent living on the ocean. But that thought also hurts something in him. It’s the part of him that must live with the knowledge that Uncle Iroh would never know how sorry he was, that the woman he’d loved would never know a world without war. The pain is a fierce ache--he breathes deeply and releases it, like delicate tendrils of smoke floating away from a candle in the night.  


He must move past it and be the Fire Lord his uncle would have been proud of--the Fire Lord that she would have been proud of. 

Zuko reaches into his desk to touch the necklace that had become his loadstone. He traces a thumb over the smooth stone, over the well loved and worn blue ribbon. Then he sets it back into its lacquered box and returns his attention to his paperwork and more specifically, the proposal submitted by his minister of education.  


Lord Shin is proposing a way to replace the old imperialistic curriculum with a far more nuanced view of the world. Somehow, Zuko realizes, he’s going to have to find a way to divert enough annual funds to support education for _all_ citizens. Even the common folk, he knows, deserve to learn how to read and write. Without a doubt, he has the manpower to build enough schools to accomplish that goal. Finding the money to fund construction and train teachers is another matter entirely.  


Zuko sighs and rubs an eye. His eyes hurt with the strain of staring at documents in the candlelight. Absentmindedly, he lights the nearby lanterns with a flick of wrist. Finally, the light is clear enough to see without struggling to decipher Lord Shin’s appalling scrawl.  


Every light in his office suddenly goes out.  


Zuko sits up.  


Instinctively, he reaches for the hilt of the knife strapped to the underside of his desk. He touches the worn hilt just as every muscle in his body seizes at once. Then, too late, he understands.  


The river goddess has finally returned to kill him.  


Mist creeps into the room, his cup of tea freezing on his desk with an ominous crack. The air he manages to suck in is frozen--so cold that it hurts his lungs. Zuko chokes her name--the one she’d had before becoming an avenging spirit.  


“Oh?” her voice says, coy and sugary, “You remember me after all.”  


There is a creak from somewhere behind him--bare feet on polished wood. He gasps for breath, fighting the panic and the pain--it feels as if every inch of his body has just been plunged into liquid fire. Slowly, against his will, his body turns. Like an awful marionette, he falls out of his chair and kneels before the woman. His arms are pulled tightly behind his back--he can’t help the sound that escapes his mouth, a gasping choked cry.  


He looks up.  


Illuminated by moonlight, the river goddess is terrible and beautiful. Her eyes shine like stars, as remote and as vast as the night sky itself. Her lips, full and red, curve into something that resembles a smile. She is like cold iron, burning with anger and ice and fury. She is shrouded in mist and shadows, a widow garbed in darkness.  


“You died,” he chokes, “They told me you were dead.”  


She laughs, low and dark. “What makes you think I’m living, sweetheart?”  


The river goddess circles his prone body, as if appraising a statue. He struggles against her hold.  


“Don’t hurt yourself, Zuko,” she warns, voice soft, “I need you alive.”  


He struggles against the pain and terror, but she ignores him. Carefully, she settles herself into his empty chair. “I’ve spent the last year considering this,” she says conversationally as she arranges her skirts, “You’ve done a passable job ruling the Fire Nation, but it’s only a matter of time before some idiot starts another war.”  


She waits for a response, but he’s too busy trying to breathe. The river goddess sighs and makes a gesture. Suddenly, Zuko’s body is his own again. He sucks in desperate air, kneeling on his hands and knees. She waits patiently for him to turn and face her. “Why are you here?” he demands, rising on shaky legs, “What do you want, _Katara?_ ”  


She sighs impatiently, examining her nails--they are covered in something red and wet and the worst part is that he doesn’t know if it’s blood or paint or both. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the discord brewing in the Earth Kingdom,” she continues, “Long Feng is calling for the colonies to be retaken and he’s willing to go to war for them.”  


They both know that Zuko cannot afford to return them--if the common folk didn’t outright overthrow him then the economic repercussions would be devastating. “Yes,” he huffs, struggling to catch his breath, “He’s looking to consolidate power, but Omashu stands in his way.”  


Zuko weighs his options carefully--a forward attack isn’t likely to work against her and more than anything, he cannot call for help. He won’t give her more innocent lives to snuff out. The wisest course of action, he decides, is to bide his time and watch carefully.  


In his chair, she looks small and harmless, but that is the furthest thing from the truth.  


“Bumi is an old man.” Katara says, crossing her legs and exposing a sliver of skin from ankle to hip.  


Zuko realizes, unexpectedly—almost against his will--that beneath those brown robes she is entirely naked. He swallows uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at her. She quirks a knowing smile and he flushes like a teenage boy. “Interested?” she teases.  


He finally meets her eyes. “You’re beautiful Katara,” he admits, “But I’m interested in surviving tonight.”  


Then he attacks, throwing a blast of fire straight at her. It would have been a deathstrike, but she gestures sharply and the entire room explodes into steam. His entire body seizes up again--the pain is even more intense this time, but he can’t even scream. Instead, her laughter rings in his ears.  


“Shh,” she croons, suddenly kneeling beside him, lips beside his ear, “We don’t want to wake your guards, especially since I was so careful to send them to sleep.”  


The river goddess laughs to herself and dispels the steam. “You don’t know how to give up, Fire Lord,” she muses, “I’ve always like that about you.”  


Then she continues as if he hadn’t tried to kill her--as if he wasn’t on his knees, struggling to breath--as if they were old friends discussing politics over a late night cup of tea. “I expect that Long Feng is going to make a play for Omashu sooner than later,” she continues, “After that, he’ll have most of the Earth Kingdom.”  


She makes a gesture, and something loosens in his chest. Zuko still can’t move, but he sucks in grateful breaths anyway. She waits for him. “Unification is good,” he manages to reply, between breaths, “But not when he turns his attention to the colonies--he’ll come at us with more than just the Dai Lee.”  


“Yes,” she agrees, “You’re going to need allies, Fire Lord.”  


Katara kneels in front of him. “Besides,” she continues, “This move will kill quite a few birds with one stone. Long Feng is a small problem, but someone will have to keep the Fire Nation in line after he’s been dealt with.”  


There’s a sinking feeling in his chest. “What do you mean?”  


She lifts his chin. Very slowly, very deliberately, she kisses him.  


For a heavy, pregnant moment, Zuko is motionless. Inside--he goes to war with himself; he doesn’t want this from _her_ , not after everything that has happened and everything she’s done. Not after everything _he’s_ done to her. But he can’t help himself--there is also a part of him that craves the feel of her lips against him. It’s the part of him that kisses her back even when he can barely move because _she’s_ the one holding him prisoner by bending the very blood in his veins.  


Zuko kisses her back with everything he can until she pulls away, eyes dark with triumph. She traces the top of his lip with one slim finger, laughing softly, cruelly.  


“Someone will need to protect the peace,” she tells him, “And after I am gone, my children will.”  


His blood runs cold. “Your children?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.  


“Our children.” she corrects him, carefully straightening his clothes and wiping what can only be her facepaint from his lips--endearingly domestic and utterly terrifying.  


She stands and steps back, striding toward the open window.  


“Tomorrow, a hawk will arrive from the United Water Tribe alliance,” she says, her hold weakening with every step, “In the letter, there will be a proposal--the hand of a Water Tribe Princess to secure an alliance between the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes. You may negotiate as much as you please, Fire Lord, but I expect you to accept it by the time I arrive with the ambassadorial party in six weeks.”  


“And if I say no?” Zuko challenges.  


“You won’t.”  


“I thought you said I don’t know how to give up,” he says, “How do you know I won’t fight this?”  


She turns her head back to glance at him, quirking a bright blood red smile. Some of it has smeared onto her cheek and he can’t help the shiver of desire that slides down his back. It is laced with both anticipation and fear and some of it must show on his face. “Your people have had enough war and you know you’re going to need allies sooner than later,” she says, “And besides, there’s no shame in admitting that you want me, Zuko. This must be a dream come true for you.”  


There is something bitter and ugly in her voice as she says that last part. He winces. A thousand years ago in Ba Sing Se, they’d met in a tea shop and had tried to be more than just enemies. They’d been young and idealistic in all the wrong ways. They’d been stupid enough to fall in love.  


But then Azula had offered him a way home and had promised that he could bring Katara back with him. She’d be his property, his sister had said, but she’d live and the idiot he’d been had thought that she would forgive him eventually. Of course, nobody could have predicted that only hours later his sister would rip the Avatar out of the sky with lightning--nobody could predict that Uncle would die to help the waterbender escape with the child Avatar in her arms--nobody could predict that she would fail and uncle would fail and the entire Earth Kingdom would fall. And so he’d watched Uncle die and Katara die because of him--because he’d made the wrong choice.  


Or so he’d thought.  


“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to atone for something he never truly could, “I made a terrible mistake, Katara.”  


She stiffens.  


“I’m sorry for what happened,” he says, “I thought I was making the right decision--I thought I could go home and make my father love me again--I thought I could keep you too, but I was so wrong and too many people paid the price--  


He swallows back tears, tries to swallow back the guilt and shame and says, “Uncle died because of me and I thought for the longest time that I’d lost you too.”  


“Oh, I died alright,” she says in a terribly nonchalant voice, “You didn’t kill me--but I died.”  


Then the woman who used to be Katara tells him a story. Partially paralyzed, he listens as she explains in a low, quiet voice that Azula had shot her with lightning, very nearly killing her.  


Sometime later--she’d never found out how long--she’d woken up in a waterbending prison alone. She was the only prisoner, aside from the bones of her countrymen and women.  


Water was restricted, she told him. Every four days, she would be restrained with chains and given a single cup of water. “I was so thirsty,” she tells him, “I didn’t care that the chains hurt or that my only company was the skeleton in the next cell or that I felt like an animal--all I could think about was the one warm cup of water.”  


They wouldn’t let her bathe, she explains. She’d spent months half-crazy with grief, dying from dehydration. “I couldn’t wash his blood off,” she whispers, “I spent two months starting at Aang’s dried blood on my hands--I’d killed him--I’d killed everybody and I wanted to be dead too--I prayed that I would die quickly.”  


Then she turns to face, as raw and as real and as terrible as the river goddess she’d become.  


“I would have stayed in that prison for the rest of my life if one--,” her voice breaks off and she sucks in a shuddering breath, “I would have died in that prison if I hadn’t been young and pretty and entirely alone.”  


Zuko stiffens, horror rushing down his spine. “Katara--  


“I was a _thing_ to them,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks, “I was nothing but something to waste the time--something to _fuck_ \--  


He stares at her. How could he even begin to process what had happened to her? How could he even begin to apologize for making the decision that had put her there? “Katara--I’m sorry--I’m _so sorry_ \--  


“But I got my revenge,” she continues, as if he hadn’t spoken, “They raped me, but one of them forgot to clean up after himself and I used his _cum_ to kill him and then I used his blood to kill everybody else in that graveyard.”  


She finally looks at him and clenches her first. Her hold--which had been weak enough for him to struggle to his feet--tightens and his entire body seizes up. “Don’t apologize for what your sister did,” she says fiercely, “You betrayed me, but _she_ sent me there. Accept the blame for what you did and marry me so that I don’t have to murder anybody else.”  


He feels sick. “We don’t have to marry for our nations to become allied--you don’t have to do this.” he pleads.  


She laughs, but it’s not mocking, amused laughter. It is the laughter of a dead woman walking. “I don’t give second chances anymore, Fire Lord Zuko. This alliance is the best way to ensure peace, but if I have to, I _will_ lead an army and sit _myself_ on that throne,” she says with the sincerity of a saint, “I will kill as many people as I have to without regret, without hesitation.”  


And he knows she will--the river goddess and the crone killed _so many_ people. Standing beside the open window, eyes cold--Katara will commit genocide without hesitation.  


“You’ll be just as bad as Ozai if you do that,” he says, “There can’t be peace if we’re all dead.”  


Fiercely, Katara snarls, “I won’t sit by and allow another hundred years of war to swallow the world because of your delicate sensibilities--if there were another I would replace you in heartbeat.”  


Instead of anger or horror or even shame, Zuko just feels sad. There is a profound tragedy in the way the world has turned noble, hopeful Katara into the same kind of monsters that started the war. Her desire to protect the peace, he realizes, is going to ignite another war. Can the world survive the kind of war that Katara would wage upon it?  


“There are other ways to protect the peace--options that don’t involve murder and genocide,” he pleads and because he means it, he adds, “You deserve to be free, Katara. I can’t let you sacrifice yourself.”  


She shakes her head. “No,” she says, “This is the only way I can think of that stops Long Feng’s reach and protects your throne without killing anyone.”  


With that, she turns back to the window. Desperate, Zuko cries, “Wait--just listen to me--I’ll do what you want--an alliance is good for everyone, but I can’t marry you. I won’t marry you--I won’t make you sleep with me or force you to have children--”  


“ _I’m not broken_ ,” she snarls, “I am not incapable of fucking you or bearing your children.”  


“Katara--  


“ _Stop saying my name!_ ” she screams, “ _Stop trying to protect me!_ ”  


The temperature in the room drops and Zuko’s breath appears before him in puffs of delicate vapor. “I’m not trying to protect you,” he shouts back, his temper finally snapping, “I’m trying to do the right thing!”  


With the flick of a wrist, he relights the lanterns. Beside the window, she seems much smaller. Like a badger-wolverine, hackles risen. Small, but so very deadly. He’s read descriptions of the river goddess, but it’s another thing to see Katara’s costume in the fire light. The gown is dark brown--like old blood--but there are enough slits to expose her shoulders and most of her chest. Red designs are painted across her warm brown skin, her blood red lips are curled into a silent snarl. Her eyes are as cold as the frost creeping across the carpet. 

“The right thing to do,” she says with menace, “Is to man up and _fuck me_.”  


“I won’t be like them!” he snarls at her, “I won’t rape you!”  


It surprises her and for a single moment her hold is broken. He spits fire at her like a dragon, but she blocks smoothly--pulling water out of thin air, forming a spinning ball. Their elements collide and steam explodes into the room. It hangs low and heavy and dense--like a ghost, she disappears into the fog. Zuko conjures fire daggers and waits.  


“I won’t let you be forced into this,” he tells the quiet room, “I will _never_ hurt you that way.”  


Between one second and the next, there is a shard of ice pressed up against his throat--he freezes, suddenly aware of her presence behind him. “Stop fighting, Zuko,” she whispers, “I’m so much stronger than you--what makes you think you can force _me_ to do anything?”  


“What makes you think you can protect me from _anything?_ ” she muses, shifting up against him--pressing her breasts against his back.  


Spirits--he can _practically_ feel her nipples through the thin silk of his tunic. Zuko tries to fight the shiver of desire that runs straight down his spine, settling between his legs. She grinds up against him, aggressive and terrifying and it makes him want her so badly that his teeth ache. He swallows carefully, his Adam's apple bobbing against the cold ice. “I will never stop trying to protect you.” he swears, shivering as a steady stream of cold droplets run down his neck and soak into his tunic.  


The daggers in his hands fade into smoke.  


“I don’t need protection,” Katara purrs, circling him, “I’m not broken--I can keep up with you _just_ fine.”  


He feels like he’s burning up from the inside--the shard of ice melting against the column of his throat. He wants to pull her into his arms and fuck her until he can’t think straight anymore--he already can’t think straight. In that moment, he doesn’t care that she’s become a monster. He’d fallen in love with her when they were children--when she was sweet and noble and full of optimistic idealism--and that love hadn’t died with her. Zuko would take Katara anyway that he could get her, but she needed to choose this--she needed to _want_ this.  


“Then tell me you want this,” he challenges, pulling her against, melting the shard of ice until there is nothing holding them apart but the thin layers of silk and cotton, “I won’t make you do this.”  


“Zuko,” she says with a terrible laugh, “I’m the one making you do this.”  


Then she attacks him and it’s like a spark lighting a fire. She wraps her legs around his waist and their lips meet and he kisses her with desperate ferocity. She is aggressive and demanding and he is very, very eager to please. Zuko staggers over to his desk and with one hand, sweeps everything off it. He sets her down and starts working at her dress--she _is_ naked beneath it. “Just rip it,” she snaps when he tries to pull it over her head, “I don’t care--  


He rips it down the middle, exposing most of her chest. He steps between her legs and kisses her, palming her heavy breasts. Her nipples, tight and brown are warm in his hands. She gasps and arches at his touch. Katara breaks away and attacks his trousers. He helps her pull them off him--he helps her undress until they’re both naked and she is guiding him into her and he’s sinking inside, gasping. She is quiet, breathing hard--he buries his face in the crook of her neck. Very slowly, he becomes aware of the fact that Katara is rigid beneath him. He props himself up on his elbows and finally _looks_ at her. “Are you okay?” he asks, even as he knows that she is _not_.  


“I need to be on top,” she says brusquely, “Roll over.”  


He blinks and before he can react, she flips them over none-too gently. Then she’s moving and Zuko can barely think straight because he’s trying not to finish before they’ve even really gotten started. “Katara, stop,” he pleads, “Just give me a second--  


She ignores him, gripping his shoulders and pounding down on him--only his hands on her hips quiets her frenzied rush. The contrast between them--pale skin against rich brown--is intoxicating, but Zuko tries to think straight. “Just wait a minute.” he gasps.  


“Get your hands off me.” she growls.  


Her grip on his shoulders tightens. For a moment, Zuko debates with himself. He can tell that something is wrong--she’s stiff and angry and tense. She isn’t enjoying it anymore--not since he settled on top of her. But she’s like an angry puma-cat and the last thing he wants is to get clawed.  


“Can you slow down a bit, sweetheart?” he asks, then a little awkwardly, admits, “You were hurting me.”  


She blinks at him, then brushes a strand of hair behind one ear. Very slowly, he strokes her sides, running his hands up and down the curve of her hips. Like petting a puma cat. Like loving a woman who’d been hurt the way no one should ever be. Katara blinks and very slowly, she rises and impales herself upon him, never breaking eye contact. He can’t think straight because he’s choking on his very breath. She’s so warm, so _right_. She begins a very slow, very heavy rhythm. Katara seems to enjoy the way he suffers beneath her. Finally, she smiles--confident and sure and incredibly beautiful and completely deadly.  


He watches her and wonders if it is possible to become more than a killer.  


It’s a question he’s been asking himself since Ba Sing Se fell.  


“Come here.” he says finally and draws her down.  


First, he kisses her, long and sweet. “Don’t move.” he whispers, then draws her breasts closer and admires them with his mouth. When he takes one nipple into his mouth, he’s rewarded with a strangled moan. She tightens around him suddenly--because she can never _not_ retaliate--and it very nearly sends him over the edge.  


He breathes through his mouth--trying to think of anything but the warmth surrounding him, the softness of her breasts in his hands. “Do you want this to be over sooner?” he chokes, eyes shut.  


“It’s over when I say so.” she growls, sweet and menacing and he bares his teeth at her.  


He pulls her down and thrusts up into her. She cries out and retaliates because how can she not? They fall upon each other like animals, thrusting and pounding until he’s shuddering and finishing inside her, gasping her name like a swear word. She’s clinging to him so tightly, fingers digging into his arms as she writhes through her own orgasm.  


The room is finally silent, their bodies finally still.  


Something changes between them after sex.  


They weren’t virgins, not by any stretch of the imagination. This wasn’t even the first time they’d done this together. But they hadn’t been young fumbling idiots for a long time--so much had changed. They’d changed.  


“You’re so beautiful,” Zuko whispers to the woman in his arms, “Every time I see you, you’re more beautiful than the last time.”  


She doesn’t say anything, but he can feel the quirk of her smile. Katara seems so small, curled up on his chest. They are still joined together, sticky and warm and too sated to bother with moving. Outside, the moon begins its downward spiral and although the air is cool, Zuko is warm.  


Katara shifts to watch him. “Are you cold?” he asks softly.  


She doesn’t say anything. He hesitates before resting his hands on her hips. She blinks and very slowly, shakes her head once. “Your hips?” he asks and this time, he is rewarded with a nod.  


Later, he’ll find the scars on her hip, the little white half-moon scars that were a gift from the waterbending prison that had killed her.  


For now, however, he moves his hands and strokes her hair instead. Something relaxes in her, a subtle loosening of muscles. Completely, unexpectedly, Zuko is content. For a while anyway--desks are not the most comfortable of beds.  


At some point, they migrate in search of a more comfortable resting place. Hand in hand, without saying much, they creep through moonlight halls and into his darkened chambers. They approach the bed that the last five Fire Lords slept in--the bed he was born into. The bed, he realizes with a start, that Katara will deliver their children in. Beside him, she whispers, “I killed your father as he slept in this bed.”  


In that moment, they both relive that awful night.  


Katara, he imagines, must be reliving the way she’d crept into the palace and ripped his father’s heart out of his chest. Zuko, beside her, relives the terrifying discovery at dawn. The terrible relief he’d felt seeing his father dead, the shame for even _thinking_ that, and finally, the tremulous hope that the war could finally be over.  


“Why didn’t you kill me?” he asks her.  


She turns luminous blue eyes on him. “I might still.”  


His heart skips a beat. “Relax,” she sighs, “I need you alive for now.”  


Zuko doesn’t know how to react. He doesn’t know anything about this Katara except that she was once the girl he loved and is now very likely to be the woman who killed him. She was entirely capable of killing anyone who stood in her way, but somehow it is hard to reconcile that knowledge with the woman who clutches his hand and has terrible bed head.  


He’s half in love with her already.  


She doesn’t seem to sense his utter stupidity. “I wanted to kill you,” she says without looking at him, “I wanted to kill you and make sure your entire family was finally wiped out of existence. I had already killed you father and your sister, but when I stood over your bed...”  


She trails off. Zuko waits.  


Finally, she turns to look at him. “I lied when I said I would kill you if there was another heir. That night, I stood over you and I was suddenly so tired of killing. I was so tired of ending lives and washing blood off of my hands.”  


He takes her hands and slowly draws her down to the bed. They sit at the edge of it.  


“I don’t want anybody else to die for that stupid war,” she says, finally, “I want to stop counting every single thing I’ve lost and I want my children to grow up without being afraid.”  


“It will be,” he promises, “We’ll make sure our children will never know war.”  


Her eyes harden and she clutches his hands. “If this doesn’t work, I will not hesitate to kill everyone in this palace and anyone else I have to---  


Zuko leans in and kisses her. “This is just a bed,” he tells her with gentle honesty, “I was born on it and my father died on it. Uncle would tell me that even a new world has to start on something old.”  


“It’s just a bed.” she says, even though neither of them believes it.  


“Peace starts with us,” he tells her, “And it starts here.”  


He touches her stomach. “For them.”  


“It’s just a bed.” she repeats stubbornly and somehow, that makes him smile, “And it’s going to take more effort to make an heir.”  


“Yes.” he agrees because she’s right.  


He draws her down onto the bed.  


They don’t make love again immediately. Instead, in the bed of his forefathers, Zuko lays beneath a waterbender. There’s something intoxicating about kneeling beneath her, using his mouth to bring her to completion, watching as her body grows rigid. Legs spread, body clenched, head thrown back, Zuko watches as she shudders through her orgasm, feels her shudder through it.  


Afterward, he plays with her hair while she smiles at him shyly. It is profoundly funny and endearing that for just a little while after sex, bloodthirsty Katara is still a complete puff ball. It gives him hope that more pieces of the girl he’d loved are still in there.  
It doesn’t take long for her to pounce on him again. This time they don’t make love--they rut like animals.  


Katara is demanding and rough--she likes it hard and fast and Zuko is eager to oblige, fucking her from behind as she braces herself against the dark lacquered bed frame. It’s longer this time and he savors every gasp and moan and curse that falls from Katara’s lips. They fall over the edge together and collapse into a sweaty heap. She falls asleep like that, entwined with him, face buried in the crook of his neck.  


He can't help watching her sleep.  


Unconscious, Katara is all soft edges and sprawled limps. Her hair has curled into a messy brown cloud, red paint smeared all over her and all over his sheets (he can’t even begin to imagine what he looks like). For everything about her that hasn’t changed, there are two things that have. Some changes are small—like the way her hair is so short that the curls are more of an angry riot around her head (he does not think of brushing her hair or braiding it or the memorable afternoon she’d asked him to pull it during sex). There are faint lines around her eyes, the beginning of crow’s feet that match his own. There are bigger changes—the scar bisecting her cheek. It is faint now, but he wonders if it was a gift from prison or from his sister. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to ask her.  


There are parts of her that have been forged by war and violence, parts that he will both understand and never understand. Zuko knows that he will have to reconcile these different pieces; accept who Katara is now. He will need to accept who she will become as his wife--who she will become when she decides to start living again.  


She shifts in her sleep and those blue eyes crack open for a second. She tenses, the softness sliding away--replaced with weary violence. He smooths her hair back. “Sleep,” he tells her, “You’re safe tonight.”  


Katara relaxes back into his arms, murmuring something about taking the next watch. Instead, he watches over her and holds her close every time her fears rouse her from sleep. Zuko falls asleep just before dawn, wrapped around her.  


⚬⚬☽☾⚬⚬  


Zuko blinks awake and knows that she is gone.  


He sits up in the center of his too-large, too-empty bed and wonders, for a long moment, if she really did die. Was last night a hallucination brought on by stress and grief and dreams of a future he wished he could have had?  


But then he sees the red paint on his hand and the rumpled sheets--no spirit could have left a mark like that.  


Only Katara could.  


He climbs out of bed and stops short. On his nightstand is a necklace, sitting in the little lacquered box that he’d commissioned specially for it. Last night, that box had been sitting on his desk. Zuko picks it up and holds it close. She’d found it and left it here for him to find. 

  
Why?  


How long had she watched him, he wondered. Did she know that he’d held that necklace in his hands every single night since the moment that Azula gave it to him and informed him with cool satisfaction that his whore had died trying to revive the Avatar? Maybe that’s why she hadn’t killed him--because it had been her necklace wrapped around his wrist on the night his father died. Maybe that’s why she’d finally revealed herself--maybe she finally trusted him enough to try living again.  


He wraps the familiar blue velvet ribbon around his wrist and goes to the window. How much of her immeasurable resolve--how much of her drive to marry him was actually born of love? Of duty? Of revenge?  


How much of Katara still loved him?  


From his window, he can see the highest ridges of the caldera. The ocean--her ocean--lies beyond it. He rubs a thumb against the cool stone that had once rested against the column of her throat. He had told her in a thousand ways last night that he’d loved her. Maybe this was her way of trying to tell him the same thing.  


Then he decided.  


When she returned, he would tie it around her throat once again and kiss the spot where it should have been all along.  


  
⚬⚬☽⚬☾⚬⚬  
Epilogue  
⚬⚬☽⚬☾⚬⚬

Tonight is the third night this week that the Fire Lord has worked late. The moon is rising, and he is still pouring over paperwork, muttering to himself and squinting in the poor candlelight. Katara is sitting twelve yards away, perched in shadowy branches when she realizes that her husband will be wearing glasses before he’s thirty.  


The thought it so small and so domestic that it almost makes her smile.  


She looks down at her fingers, wishing for her red paint. For so long, it had been armor and a curse and a blessing. There would be other armor she assures herself—silks and gowns and the kinds of things that Water Tribe Princesses wore when they were about to become the Fire Lord’s consort. Tomorrow, she would be dressed in full Water Tribe regalia, but tonight she was simply dressed as herself.  
It wasn’t something she’d done for a long time.  


The cloth of her tunic had dyed by her mother’s cousin, sewn by her grandmother. The sealskin of her leggings had been caught by Bato and tanned by his wife. If clothing represented who she was, then the clothing she’d worn to see Zuko that first time had represented a completely different identity. It had been the river goddess who wore brown and red and wore confidence as easily as blood.  
Katara touched the sleeve of her tunic, tracing the carefully embroidered crescent moons on her sleeves. Then she counts silently.  


Eight weeks since she crept Zuko’s bed in the early dawn.  


Fifty-six long days since he’d agreed to marry her.  


One thousand and three hundred hours since he’d last held her in his arms.  


Would he hold her again in three minutes, when she slipped into his office?  


After Ba Sing Se, Katara had found herself counting almost uncontrollably. After she’d died in that prison, there had been comfort in it. First, she’d counted the days spent in prison, staring at Aang’s blood on her hands and then she’d count how many meals that Aang and Sokka and Toph would never have again. After escape, she’d counted each terrifying day on the run and every single time she’d turned to tell Sokka something and found nothing but the sky and dirt and grief listening in.  


Shivering at night, she would count her fingers and toes and how many months she had carried the child of her rapist in her belly before a miscarriage had taken even that from her (she’d even counted how many times she’d cried in relief and how many times in grief and how many times she’d prayed for death as her child spilled out of her body). After finding Hama, she’d counted how many hours they’d trained and how many bruises the old woman had left on her. Together, they counted how many moons it would take to make it to the Fire Lord.  


And then the counting had turned into tallying the number of lives she’d taken (too many) and how many she’d managed to spare (never, ever enough). How many times she’d sat beside the cooking fire afterward and felt absolutely no remorse (too many). She’d counted how many times she’d returned from a moon night and vomited into the bushes (four).  


Hama only had to be buried once, but it had taken her three tries to finish the job (she had alternated between crying tears of grief that her mentor was god and crying tears in thanks that the old crone was never ever going to steal another innocent life). 

  
At the very end, she’d counted how many generals lived in the palace (twenty-three) and how many guards had protected Fire Lord Ozai (fifty-two). As dawn broke, she had counted how many seconds she’d spent standing over Zuko’s sleeping form before she’d realized that she couldn’t kill him (six hundred).  


It had taken three weeks to return to the Southern Water Tribe.  


There were five people waiting for her.  


Gran-gran  


Master Pakku  


Dad  


Toph  


Sokka  


Toph had cried only once--alive and angry and so grateful that she was too stubborn to die. Sokka hadn’t cried--he’d shouted her name and clutched her so tightly that there had been five little purple bruises on each arm the next day. He’d begged for forgiveness and apologized for leaving her behind.  


She’d cried too many tears to count.  


And suddenly there were too many things to count--Katara’s new reality was utterly upended.  


After so much death and loss and destruction...life was suddenly inevitable. Her future was no longer narrowed down to that last terrible plan.  


How could she live when her last intention had been to return home and throw herself into the ocean?  


How could she live when so many had not?  


Suddenly, Katara had to find a way to live and survive in a world when it still felt like she was a dead woman walking.  


In some ways, pretending to be normal had been worse than the prison. At least the torture had been clear. Katara had stuffed everything down into a tiny little box until she could smile at Gran-gran and train with Master Pakku and cook with dad and laugh with Toph. Her brother wasn’t fooled, but she tried the hardest for him.  


Until word reached them that Long Feng was on the move again. Then she could breathe again, she could count every moment until she could go to battle again. This time, she promised herself, she would make sure that the war could never be reignited again.  


And she’d found a perfect way to make sure the Fire Nation protected the peace.  


It had led her to this moment--to watching Zuko through his office window.  


One Fire Lord.  


One dead woman walking.  


One child waiting to be born.  


When she slips into his office, he is sitting at the desk. In one hand, he holds her mother’s necklace. “You’re late.” he told her, instead of hello.  


She counts three breaths, five steps (two are her’s and three are his), two hands that reach around her throat, and one pendant that comes to rest at the hollow of her neck. “I thought you were a ghost” he tells her, kissing the warm stone against her skin, “I’m so glad you’re not.”  


Katara finally looks up and meets his eyes. They are intent and vulnerable and so gold that they take her breath away. Zuko reaches up and traces a thumb across her bottom lip. Not for the first time, Katara wonders if her decision to sacrifice her life and body and heart and freedom was actually a decision to start living again. Because she couldn’t be dead if Zuko’s son or daughter was growing inside of her.  


“I’m pregnant.” she says, instead of hello.  


She touches her lips to his. Zuko had never been a means to an end, she realized. He’d been the calm after the storm, the hands that had caressed her so softly despite everything she’d done to him. He was the reason that she could stop counting everything she’d lost since the moment that Azula had murdered the world’s last hope.  


“You’re pregnant?” Zuko asks stupidly.  


In that moment, she hopes that their sons and daughters will looks exactly like him. Katara could live with the knowledge that Ozai’s blood would be in her children because it would be Zuko’s eyes and Zuko’s smile that she would see.  


“Yes,” she whispers, a smile growing on her lips, “I’m eight weeks pregnant.”  


Then he kisses her as if she hadn’t forced him into this, as if she were a real breathing woman and not walking death. As if she were Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and he loved her.  


“Thank you.” he told her, his breath warm against her cheek.  


“I think,” Katara says, as tears begin to fill her eyes, “That I’m the one who should be thanking you.”


End file.
